How The Light Gets In
by Ianuaria
Summary: Late season two Addek - spending a little more time with each other might have saved their marriage. What happens when they take the advice?


**_A very short beginning of uet another Addek story. I hope you like it._**

* * *

 ** _.._**

 ** _Ring the bells that still can ring_**

 ** _Forget your perfect offering_**

 ** _There is a crack, a crack in everything_**

 ** _That's how the light gets in._**

 ** _.._**

* * *

It's dark.

Six pm, when there should still be a last few faint strains of sunlight, dark golden and crimson. Instead clouds gather on the horizon, thick and heavy, swollen. It'll rain tonight.

This gives him a mean little flicker of pleasure as he thinks of what he's about to do.

.◇.◇.

"Dr. Shepherd." Addison's nurses like him. They always do. This one, though...

Maybe they're on her side, here in the NICU. He might have the rest of the hospital on his side but he's clearly in enemy territory here; he caught a few unfriendly and openly curious glances when he walked in.

In New York, it was nothing out of the ordinary for him to come to the NICU looking for his wife. To leave her messages, charts, notes. Sometimes flowers.

Then again, in New York, they weren't a prime source of hospital gossip.

"Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd isn't here." the nurse says. Her name tag reads _Faith._ She has soft brown eyes, light brown hair. She's wearing pink scrubs and yellow clogs, is a good foot shorter than him and about as threatening as a hamster. She's looking at him like she'd like to gut him.

"Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd _is_ here." Addison says dryly. He missed the rapid-fire click of her heels and she's suddenly behind him, taking a chart from poor surprised Faith, dipping into his pocket for a pen. He catches a familiar waft of her perfume as she leans over the counter to write, her hair rustling softly as it slips over her shoulders.

"Good." he says, checking his phone. "You're done for the day?"

She hums a confirmation as she checks through something, scrawls her signature.

 _A. Shepherd_

"Nothing you need to check up on?"

"No," she replies, faintly annoyed.

"Excellent. Because you're going on leave for the next week."

.◇.◇.

"Your nurse hates me." he announces blithely as she slides into the passenger seat of his jeep. Okay, so she has to kind of drag herself a little, but no one's looking.

"Faith?" she asks, stalling for time. Faith is a new grad, young and nervous, pliable and eager to please. it was easy to suggest to her that _if_ Derek ever came wandering in - chances were slim to none - that she could tell him Addison wasn't there.

Why?

Maybe she needs a break- a little respite from his cold gaze, the frigid air between them, a break from desperately pretending her husband still loves her, that his lip doesn't curl ever so slightly when he sees her. _If_ he sees her.

"She's not my nurse." she says finally. "You don't _own_ nurses, not that I'd expect you to understand that...and what do you mean, about going on leave?"

"You'll see." he says smugly. Rain spsplatters thickly on the windshield, red from the traffic lights.

.◇.◇.

" _Camping_?"

Her voice pierces shrilly through the shower door. He left her with a pile of brochures and an empty pack; attempting to navigate his wife's wardrobe is not a skill he's learnt in all his years of marriage.

She slaps the translucent plastic with her palm. "Really, Derek?"

"The therapist said we need to spend time together," he yells back. "Think about it, Addison. Quiet, solitude -"

"Like the trailer?" she seethes.

Damn. He should have seen this coming.

"You'll like it." he says lamely, checking the lock on the door.

"Oh, I'm sure I'll love it." she says sarcastically. "Sleeping on rocks, peeing in the woods-" she trails off while he tries not to snicker at the memory of her poison ivy encounter.

"Don't you dare laugh at me." she says, although her voice is alight with a smile.

He places his hand over the fogged shadow of hers on the shower door, the echo of the way they stood months ago in the foyer of their old home.

"So...you'll come?"

"Only if I get to pick the next trip." she says.

* * *

 ** _Okay, I know it's very very short...but please review and let me know what you think! Should I keep writing? I have a few WIPs that are close to done and I wanted to do something new, and this idea has been in my head forever._**


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